The Mass and the Ascension

“In the Eucharist and in all the sacraments we are guaranteed the possibility of encountering the Lord Jesus and of having the power of his Paschal Mystery reach us.”¹

“Our first encounter with his paschal deed is the event that marks the life of all believers: our Baptism. This is not a mental adhesion to his thought or the agreeing to a code of conduct imposed by Him. Rather, it is a being plunged into his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, a being plunged into his paschal deed.”²

Several years ago, at a large outdoor papal Mass in Canada, many of the concelebrating priests were not given a chance to receive Holy Communion. Weather conditions and confusion factored into this peculiar situation. As the frustrated priests were leaving, an Oratorian priest said to a Dominican: “Did we say Mass today? Isn’t the priest’s communion essential to the sacrifice?” The Dominican responded that St. Thomas taught that the Eucharist is complete in the consecration of the matter. Back and forth the two priests went. Hearing about the debate, another priest wondered: may I take a stipend for this Mass?

The following article will not take up the question of concelebration and priest stipends. Nor will the article deal with communion for priests at concelebrations. But it will propose an answer as to why the celebrant receives Holy Communion at Mass.

In Desiderio desideravi, Pope Francis strikingly indicates that the liturgy of the Church plunges us, immerses us, puts us in contact, not only with the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, but also with his Ascension. Desiderio desideravi can potentially be seen in the context of a larger development of Magisterial teaching on the primacy of “the entire Paschal mystery,”³ and not just the passion of Christ, as the Christological foundation of the sacraments.

In his work From Passion to Paschal Mystery, Dominic Langevin, O.P. writes, “The Magisterium has stated that aspects of the Paschal Mystery are present in the Eucharist, but has mainly left to theologians the task of discovering how and when these aspects are present.”⁴ According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Eucharist is called the “Holy Sacrifice, because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes the Church’s offering.”⁵ According to Pope St. John Paul II, “The eucharistic sacrifice makes present not only the mystery of the Savior’s passion and death, but also the mystery of the resurrection which crowned his sacrifice.”⁶ Is Pope Francis suggesting a similar connection between the Eucharist and the ascension?

While some may question whether Pope Francis precisely intends to include the ascension as part of the Paschal mystery, the Second Vatican Council taught:

He accomplished this work [redeeming humanity] principally by the Paschal mystery of his blessed Passion, Resurrection from the dead, and glorious Ascension. . . For this reason the Church celebrates in her liturgy above all the Paschal mystery by which Christ accomplished the work of our salvation.”⁷

If the ascension is also part of the Paschal mystery, the salvific passing over of the incarnate Son from this world to the Father, does the Eucharist make present the ascension? In other words, if the Church were to insist on including the ascension in the Paschal mystery and insist on the ascension being as fully present in the Mass as the passion, how and when might the liturgy signify the ascension?⁸

St. Thomas Aquinas has a great deal to say on how the rite of Mass represents the passion of Christ. He has a few things to say on how the rite of Mass represents the resurrection of Christ. He says almost nothing about how the rite of the Eucharist represents the ascension. Nevertheless, he does maintain, “in this sacrament the whole mystery of our salvation is comprehended.”⁹ If the passion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ cause and signify our salvation, it seems only fitting that the sacrament of the altar signify the whole mystery it comprehends. Should we not, then, attempt to extend St. Thomas’ analysis of liturgical representation or signification to include the ascension?

In his celebrated book A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist, Anscar Vonier locates the essential liturgical symbolism of the passion in the Eucharistic elements themselves: “The consecrated elements, or rather, the infinitely holy Thing under the elements, also signifies sacrifice, as being the immediate representation of Christ immolated on the Cross.”¹⁰ In the first section of this article, beginning with Vonier’s interpretation of St. Thomas and in light of recent documents of the Magisterium, I discuss how the separation on the altar of the Eucharistic body and blood signifies and makes present the passion of Christ. In the second section, I present how the Mass signifies the resurrection in the reunion and commingling of the Eucharistic body and blood. Finally, I take up the question of the Eucharistic signification of the ascension of Christ and present a theological proposal regarding the necessity of the priest’s communion. In focusing on the signification of the Eucharistic body and blood, I thus propose a unified way of understanding how the entire Paschal mystery is rendered present at Mass.

Signification of the Passion

St. Thomas places great emphasis on the connection between the consecration of the bread and wine at Mass and the culminating point of Christ’s passion, his sacrifice on the Cross.¹¹ St. Thomas, for example, says: “in the consecration of this sacrament, sacrifice is offered to God.”¹² Unlike the other six sacraments, the Eucharist, according to St. Thomas, is “completed not in the use of the matter but in the consecration of the matter.”¹³ In baptism, for example, the sacrament is completed, not when the water is blessed, but in the pouring of the blessed water (with the words) over the recipient. In the Eucharist the consecration of the bread and wine into Christ’s body completes the sacrament because it completes the representative image of the passion of Christ.

St. Thomas especially expresses the intimate connection between the consecration at Mass and Christ’s sacrifice in his account of why Christ gave us the Eucharist under the species of both bread and wine. If the whole Christ (body, blood, soul, and divinity) is truly and substantially present under both the appearances of bread and wine, why did Christ give himself to us under these two forms? The two separate consecrations of the bread and wine “represent the passion and death in which the blood was separated from the body.”¹⁴ In other words, the Eucharist, the memorial of Christ’s passion, symbolizes what historically took place when Christ suffered and died. We do not need to symbolize any other parts of Christ’s body being separated from each other because in his passion “the other parts of his body were not separated from each other as the blood was. . . . and thus in this sacrament the blood is consecrated separately from the body.”¹⁵ In the Eucharist the historical manner of Christ’s death, his blood fully drained from his body, is sacramentally reenacted on the altar. And thus St. Thomas strongly opposes any attempt to celebrate Mass without consecrating both the bread and the wine. “The representation of the Lord’s passion,” he writes, “is accomplished in the very consecration of this sacrament, in which the body ought not to be consecrated without the blood.”¹⁶

St. Thomas especially emphasizes the separate and “double consecration of this sacrament”¹⁷ in the final article of his treatise on the Eucharist, viz., on defects in the celebration of Mass. One defect he addresses is inadvertently omitting to use wine at the offertory. If the priest realizes, as he drinks from the chalice (after having received the host), that what he put in the chalice at the offertory was not wine but merely water, what should the priest do? St. Thomas says that the celebrant should get another host and “consecrate it again along with the blood.”¹⁸ St. Thomas does not think it is sufficient to represent the passion with only the Eucharistic body or only the blood on the altar. The Eucharistic body and blood must both be present together, separated from each other, on the altar.

If one were to object that St. Thomas’ solution is misguided because the priest, having drunk the water in the chalice, is no longer fasting (according to the then-current norm of fasting) and thus forbidden to receive the Eucharist, St. Thomas replies, “The command to complete this sacrament is of greater weight than the command to observe the eucharistic fast.”¹⁹ In his solution to this practical case, St. Thomas underlines his theology of the sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass as a sacrifice is essentially completed when the blood of Christ is consecrated. In that moment, with the body of Christ already consecrated and lying on the altar, we have the image, the representative sign, of Christ’s passion.

However, the passion of Christ is not only represented in the Mass by the double consecration. St. Thomas identifies the outstretched arms of the celebrant, the Mass linens, and the altar itself as representing respectively the arms of Christ on the Cross, the linen enwrapping his body, and the Cross of Christ. St. Thomas regards the multiple signs of the Cross during the canon as reminders of various aspects of Christ’s passion, viz., his being handed over, his being sold, the prefiguring of his passion at the Last Supper, his five wounds, the stretching out of his body on the Cross, the effusion of blood, the fruit of the Passion, the three prayers he offered on the Cross, the three hours he hung there, and the separation of his soul and body.²⁰ The importance of these and other gestures St. Thomas attributes to their representative character.²¹ St. Thomas sees in the humility of the priest’s bows a sign of Christ’s own humility and obedience in the passion. St. Thomas, however, distinguishes between these ritual gestures of the priest (what might be called auxiliary rites) and the double consecration itself. Both represent Christ’s passion. But the double consecration alone “completes the sacrifice.”²²

In the centuries following St. Thomas, theologians have tried to penetrate more deeply the connection between the consecration at Mass and Christ’s sacrifice. Pope Pius XII summarized many centuries of sacramental theology by drawing attention to the essential symbolic representation of Christ’s sacrifice in these words:

According to the plan of divine wisdom, the sacrifice of our Redeemer is shown forth in an admirable manner by external signs which are the symbols of His death. For by the “transubstantiation” of bread into the body of Christ and of wine into His blood, His body and blood are both really present: now the eucharistic species under which He is present symbolize the actual separation of His body and blood. Thus the commemorative representation of His death, which actually took place on Calvary, is repeated in every sacrifice of the altar, seeing that Jesus Christ is symbolically shown by separate symbols to be in a state of victimhood.²³

The words of Christ from the Last Supper together with the sign value of the bread and wine (sacramentum tantum — sacrament/sign only) instrumentally cause the body and blood of Christ on the altar. The sacraments cause what they signify.²⁴ A perfective sacramental causality takes place through the sacramentum tantum.²⁵ But the reality on the altar (res et sacramentum — thing and sacrament), in so far as it is under the species of bread and wine, represents and signifies further realities. According to Anscar Vonier:

In the Eucharist “sacrament and thing” is in the external matter itself, because truly the “thing,” the spiritual reality, the Body and Blood of Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine, is also “sacrament” — that is, representative in a new way of Christ on the Cross, when Body and Blood were separated.²⁶

In stressing how the Eucharistic Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine are a sign, Vonier anticipates the formulation of Mediator Dei quote above: “now the eucharistic species under which He is present symbolize the actual separation of His body and blood.”

Vonier, however, inspired by St. Thomas’ teaching that in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders the res et sacramentum is the character impressed on the soul of the recipient, draws a further conclusion about the Eucharist:

St. Thomas readily admits a double signification in the sacraments — at least in some of them; first the external thing signifies; and then the internal, spiritual reality, immediately produced by the sacrament, has, in its turn, the role of representation. The Eucharist excels, because in it sacramentum et res is not in the recipient, but in the external signs of bread and wine. Here, again, we have a truly sacramental basis for the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist.²⁷

This stress on the Sacrifice of the Mass being a sacramental sacrifice is picked up by Paul VI and Vatican II. In his encyclical Mysterium fidei, Pope St Paul VI writes:

The Lord is immolated in an unbloody way in the Sacrifice of the Mass and He re-presents the sacrifice of the Cross and applies its salvific power at the moment when he becomes sacramentally present — through the words of consecration —as the spiritual food of the faithful, under the appearances of bread and wine.²⁸

On the Cross, Christ offered himself in a bloody manner, but in the Mass Christ is offered “in an unbloody and sacramental manner (incruente et sacramentaliter offertur).”²⁹

In my view, in light of these statements by the Magisterium, it is crucial to distinguish two aspects of signification in the Eucharist. By the first, the power of the sacramental signification (ex vi sacramenti) or the power of the words (ex vi verborum), the whole substance of the bread becomes the Body of Christ and the whole substance of the wine becomes the Blood of Christ. By the second kind, that is, by the symbolism of the consecrated elements themselves, separated on the altar, the sacrifice of Christ is simultaneously signified and made present.

This mystery of Calvary prolonged throughout time in the Mass is beautifully expressed by St John Henry Newman. In one of his meditations on the sacrifice of the Mass, he prays:

I ADORE Thee, O my Lord God, with the most profound awe for thy passion and crucifixion, in sacrifice for our sins. . . . Such a sacrifice was not to be forgotten. It was not to be — it could not be — a mere event in the world’s history, which was to be done and over, and was to pass away except in its obscure, unrecognised effects. If that great deed was what we believe it to be, what we know it is, it must remain present, though past; it must be a standing fact for all times. Our own careful reflection upon it tells us this; and therefore, when we are told that Thou, O Lord, though Thou hast ascended to glory, hast renewed and perpetuated Thy sacrifice to the end of all things, not only is the news most touching and joyful, as testifying to so tender a Lord and Saviour, but it carries with it the full assent and sympathy of our reason. Though we neither could, nor would have dared, anticipate so wonderful a doctrine, yet we adore its very suitableness to Thy perfections, as well as its infinite compassionateness for us, now that we are told of it. Yes, my Lord, though Thou hast left the world, Thou art daily offered up in the Mass; and, though Thou canst not suffer pain and death, Thou dost still subject Thyself to indignity and restraint to carry out to the full Thy mercies towards us.³⁰

Having presented the fittingness of the sacrifice of the Mass based on the greatness of Christ’s sacrifice, Newman turns to its fittingness for our own self-offering to the Son on the Cross:

Thou dost humble Thyself daily; for, being infinite, Thou couldst not end Thy humiliation while they existed for whom Thou didst submit to it. So Thou remainest a Priest forever. My Lord, I offer Thee myself in turn as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Thou hast died for me, and I in turn make myself over to Thee. I am not my own. Thou hast bought me; I will by my own act and deed complete the purchase.³¹

Signification of the Resurrection

When St. Thomas turns to the question of the actions of the ministers at Mass, he offers three basic reasons for performing certain actions during the ritual of Mass. The first reason is that these gestures (in combination with the words) represent the passion of Christ. The second reason is to represent the mystical body of Christ, the Church. The third reason is to increase devotion and reverence in the faithful.³² While the respondeo only mentions the Mass’s representation of the passion, several replies to objections make clear that the Mass also represents the resurrection.

In the Dominican rite, the priest turns to address the people five times. In response to the objection that turning around is ridiculous, St. Thomas suggests that these gestures, in which the priest (the minister of Christ) shows his face to the people, “designate the five times the Lord manifested himself on the day of Resurrection.”³³ The second way in which the gestures at Mass point us to the resurrection is found in the three signs of the Cross that the priest makes before he commingles a particle of the host with the Precious Blood at the words, pax + domini sit + semper vobis + cum (may the peace of the Lord be with you always). Having made the third sign of the cross over the chalice, the priest drops the particle into the Precious Blood. St. Thomas explains: “Through these three signs of the cross the resurrection that took place on the third day is represented.”³⁴ As Christ spoke of peace to his Apostles on the third day, so the representative sign of the reunion of his body and blood fittingly involves three crosses and a word of peace.

A few replies later, St. Thomas provides a fuller account of the reasons for commingling the body and blood. Following centuries of commentary, St. Thomas inherits a rich understanding of placing a portion of the broken host in the chalice. This third part of the host can signify the Church triumphant (entering into glory) and the Church suffering (sharing in suffering). But the first thing it represents is the risen Body of Christ himself.³⁵

St. Thomas did not originate the idea of connecting the commingling with the Resurrected body of Christ. Pope Innocent III in his early thirteenth-century work, The Mysteries of the Mass, explains: “The mingling of the bread and wine signifies the union of the flesh and soul, which were newly united at Christ’s resurrection. . . . the part placed into the chalice represents the body of Christ which has already risen again.”³⁶ Around the same time, William of Auxerre writes: “the priest makes three crosses with a part of the Eucharist that he places in the blood. This action indicates that by the power of the Trinity the flesh of Christ returns to the soul. For according to philosophers, the seat of the soul is in the blood.”³⁷ In his eleventh-century commentary,  Bernold of Constance explains how the celebrant “when he says the words, the peace of the Lord be with you all, should put one part of the host into the chalice after making a sign of the cross to designate the conjoining of body and soul at the resurrection of Christ.”³⁸ All of these medieval authors are drawing on Amalar of Metz. In his ninth-century commentary on the rite of Mass, Amalar connects the commingling with the resurrection: “Through the particle of the host placed into the chalice, Christ’s body which rose from the dead is shown forth.”³⁹

According to Henri de Lubac, Amalar’s interpretation of the particle commingled with the chalice was taken “from an already established tradition.”⁴⁰ In terms of how widespread the practice is across liturgies, de Lubac notes: “As for the commingling, which consists in mixing a particle of the Host with the precious Blood by putting it into the chalice, it was also practiced in every liturgy.”⁴¹ What is the meaning of this commingling? The reunion of Christ’s body and blood at the resurrection is shown forth, according to Henri de Lubac, “through the symbolic reuniting of his body and blood.”⁴²

One of the most eloquent expressions of this tradition of interpreting the commingling is found in the writings of the Benedictine Dom Prosper Guéranger. In the brief commentary on the rite of Mass found in each of his volumes of the Liturgical Year, Guéranger explains the meaning of the commingling in this way:

The mystery is drawing to a close; God is about to be united with man, and man with God, by means of Communion. But first, an imposing and sublime rite takes place at the altar. So far the priest has announced the death of Chist; it is time to proclaim His Resurrection. To this end, he reverently breaks the sacred Host, and having divided it into three parts, he puts one into the chalice, thus reuniting the Body and Blood of the immortal Victim.⁴³

Placing part of the Host in the Precious Blood announces, proclaims, the resurrection of Christ, when Christ’s heart began to beat again and blood flowed back into his body.

Guéranger encourages people at Mass to make the following prayer as though we are standing before the Risen Christ, the “ever-living Lamb”: “Glory be to thee, O Saviour of the world, who didst, in thy Passion, permit thy precious Blood to be separated from thy sacred Body, afterwards uniting them together again by thy divine power.”⁴⁴ In his longer commentary on the Mass, Guéranger explains further why this liturgical reunion of Christ’s body and blood symbolizes the Resurrection. The object of the commingling, he writes:

is to show, that, at the moment of Our Lord’s Resurrection, His blood was reunited to his Body, by flowing again into his veins as before. It would not have sufficed if his soul alone had been reunited to His Body; His Blood must necessarily be so likewise, in order that the Lord might be whole and complete. Our Saviour, therefore, when rising, took back His Blood which was erstwhile spilled on Calvary, in the Praetorium, and in the Garden of olives.⁴⁵

Does this symbolic representation of the resurrection make present the resurrection of Christ? In his recent document, Desiderio desideravi, Pope Francis writes:

The Liturgy is the priesthood of Christ, revealed to us and given in his Paschal Mystery, rendered present and active by means of signs addressed to the senses (water, oil, bread, wine, gestures, words), so that the Spirit, plunging us into the paschal mystery, might transform every dimension of our life, conforming us more and more to Christ.⁴⁶

Notice the phrase: “by means of signs.” The Holy Father is not just saying that the liturgy signifies the Paschal mystery (as we might claim about certain auxiliary liturgical rites, such as the priest turning to the people five times). He is saying something stronger. The sensible signs used in the liturgy are the very means by which the Easter mystery is “rendered present and active.” Is there a connection between how the Eucharistic liturgy signifies the Paschal mystery (i.e., the passion, resurrection, and ascension) and makes it present? Notice also what Pope Francis says a few paragraphs later about where the mystery is rendered present: “If there were lacking our astonishment at the fact that the paschal mystery is rendered present in the concreteness of sacramental signs, we would truly risk being impermeable to the ocean of grace that floods every celebration.”⁴⁷ The Pope locates the making present of the Paschal mystery in the sacramental signs pointing us to that mystery, signs that have their own special concreteness.⁴⁸

As the resurrection of Christ followed upon the death of Christ, so the main liturgical representation of the resurrection (the commingling) follows after the main liturgical representation of the passion (the double consecration). As the separate and double consecration of the Eucharistic body and blood makes possible the making present of Christ’s sacrifice, so the new condition of the Eucharistic body and blood makes possible the making present of Christ’s resurrection. This interpretation of the rite of Mass takes its place within the Latin mystagogical understanding of the Mass. We can relive the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday in a sequential manner during the Mass. We are locating in the Mass not just fitting representations of the whole Paschal Mystery, but moments when the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension are signified and made present.

Where will the representation of the Ascension take place in the Mass? The logic of the approach points us to some event in the Mass after the commingling for a liturgical representation of the Ascension. As the Paschal mystery unfolded in stages, so the liturgical representation of the three main events of the one Mystery will follow each other sequentially. As Christ ascended forty days after he rose, we will look for something happening to the Eucharistic Body after the commingling that points us to the Ascension.

Signification of the Ascension

When St. Thomas explains the meaning of the Gloria in excelsis Deo in the rite of Mass, he says that it “commemorates heavenly glory, to which we tend after the misery of this life.”⁴⁹ When St. Thomas explains how Eucharistic concomitance works, he teaches that Christ becomes present in the Eucharist as he is at the time of the celebration. Thus when Mass is said now, the bread becomes the body of Christ as it is “now”⁵⁰ in heaven, risen and ascended, “incorruptible and impassible.”⁵¹ His body and soul are now united with his blood and divinity. We receive in Holy Communion the “glorious and impassible Body of Christ.”⁵²

The following chart highlights that the Mass, from the very moment of the consecration, makes Christ present as he is now in heaven. In each of the consecrated elements, the whole ascended Christ is present. This presence is explained in part by the sacramentum tantum⁵³ with its the power of signifying (ex vi sacramenti) and in part by concomitance:

Do such affirmations of the liturgical presence of the ascended Christ exhaust the connection between the Eucharist and the ascension? Does the Eucharist not only make present the ascended Christ, but also the very ascension of Christ by which he carries us with him to the Father?⁵⁴

Part of the difficulty of locating a distinct moment in the Mass which explicitly represents the ascension stems from the difficulty of understanding how the ascension itself contributes to our salvation. In Tertia Pars, question 57, article 6, St. Thomas discusses the salvific importance of the ascension. When St. Thomas asks whether the ascension is the cause of our salvation, he answers in the affirmative by making a distinction between causing our salvation from our part and from his part. The ascension causes our salvation by encouraging the lifting up of the human mind to perform acts of faith, hope, love, and reverence. His ascension, for example, causes us to hope that where our head has gone, the body may follow. His ascension gives us hope that there is room in God’s eternal life for us. Salvation, eternal life, intimacy with the Father, sharing in the inner life of the Trinity, all these are for us. Without these acts of hope, we cannot be saved.

But the ascension also causes our salvation from Christ’s side. His ascension, his bodily entry into heaven itself, prepares the way for us. Christ is the Head. The members cannot actually go where the Head has not yet gone. In Christ, humanity now participates as fully as possible in the eternal life of the Son. St. Thomas sees the ascension of Christ as a kind of grand procession or pilgrimage. Our Lord leads to heaven all those who were under the captivity of the devil.⁵⁵ Christ merited our salvation by his passion. But, like the resurrection, the ascension of Christ saves us. In fact, St. Thomas even says: “the ascension of Christ is directly the cause of our ascension as if beginning it in our head to whom the members must be joined.”⁵⁶ St. Thomas stresses the salvific role, not only of the ascended Christ, but of the ascension of Christ. The ascension of Christ directly causes our ascension to the Father.

St. Thomas maintains that the passion, resurrection, and ascension cause our salvation in distinct but related ways. St. Thomas teaches that the passion of Christ is the meritorious cause of the resurrection and ascension.⁵⁷ St. Thomas also says, for example, that the passion and resurrection of Christ are exemplar causes of our salvation. The passion of Christ is the exemplar cause of “the destruction of our death. And his resurrection, through which he began eternal life, is the cause of the restoration of our life.”⁵⁸ St. Thomas also says that the passion, resurrection, and even the ascension are efficient instrumental causes of our salvation. The ascension of Christ “is not the cause of our salvation through the mode of merit, but through the mode of efficiency, as it was said of the resurrection.”⁵⁹ In other words, St. Thomas thinks that each aspect of the Paschal mystery causes our salvation in its own proper way. Thus we have a reason for wanting to encounter each saving action of the Paschal mystery. In our encounter with each of these mysteries, we can receive the effects proper to each mystery.

If one wants to affirm, therefore, that the ascension is made present in the Mass, where would one begin to seek out its presence? Let us follow the pattern that explained how the passion and resurrection of Christ are made present. The separation of the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ makes possible a symbolic representation of the Passion. The reuniting of the Eucharistic Body and Blood symbolically proclaims and renders present the reunion of Christ’s Body and Blood when he rose from the dead. Is there anything done to the eucharistic body of Christ during the Mass that reminds us of the ascension?

When St. Luke recounts the ascension at the end of his Gospel, he writes about an entry into heaven, “Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was taken up into heaven” (Luke 24:50–1). Is there a place in the Mass where Christ seems to depart from us? Can we connect such a departure with his entry into heaven?

In Acts of the Apostles, the ascension is described in terms of disappearing from the sight of the Apostles:

And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9–12).

The event of the ascension involved a cloud removing Christ from the eyes of his followers. This departure culminated in heaven itself. Is the body of Christ removed from sight in the Mass? When is our view of the Body of Christ obscured? Can losing sight of the eucharistic Body of Christ signify Christ’s entry into heaven?

At Mass the celebrant is the first to receive the Eucharist. When he consumes the host, the eucharistic Body of Christ is no longer seen. The host disappears, not into a physical cloud, but into the body of the priest, a spiritual father, so that he can spiritually feed on Christ. The entry of Christ into the priest’s body and soul provides an analogy, a symbol, of Christ ascending into heaven. At the Last Supper, Christ said, “I am leaving and going to the Father” (John 16:28). When the Body of Christ is taken from our sight, when Christ seems to part from us, when the Body of Christ enters into the priest, a symbol of heaven and the eternal Father, the liturgy signifies the ascension of Christ.

In his thirteenth-century commentary on the Mass, St. Albert the Great connects the priest’s communion with the ascension. In his book Liber de sacrificio Missae, St. Albert writes, “Thus Pope Sergius established that one part of the fractioned host should be received soon by the perfecter of our holiness who stands in the place of Christ at the altar. This portion of the host signifies the part of the Church that has already passed fully into Christ.”⁶⁰  The one who stands in the place of Christ at the altar is the priest, the celebrant. His portion of the host is related to the Church in glory, which triumphs in heaven with the ascended Christ.

While the priest’s communion reminds the Church of the ascension, can that moment of the Mass be given greater weight as liturgically making present the ascension? Perhaps the answer is found by thinking more deeply about a question that arises from the notion of concomitance. If Christ is present from the moment of the consecration in “the glorified state of His human nature”⁶¹ how can the Mass be the re-presentation of His Passion? Given Christ’s glorified state on the altar, where is there room for making his Sacrifice present?

As we have seen, because the body and blood are laid on the altar in separation, they signify Christ’s Passion, in which his body and blood were separated from each other. It is not simply the sacramentum tantum that makes present the sacrifice of Calvary. The relation of the consecrated elements to each other represents and makes present his Passion. It is the moment the priest separately places the two consecrated elements “upon the altar that he offers it to God the Father as an oblation.”⁶²

The essential sacrificial signification is located not in the whole rite of Mass, but in the relation of the consecrated elements themselves. Given the importance of the separation of the Body and Blood on the altar, what would happen if the eucharistic Body is no longer separated but joined to the eucharistic Blood? What happens if the Body of Christ is lifted up from the altar and consumed? My position is expressed in the following chart:

My interpretation of the sacramental meaning of the priest’s communion is not proposed as a historical interpretation of St. Thomas’s text. St. Thomas nowhere says that the priest’s communion symbolizes the ascension.⁶³  Nevertheless, my hypothesis is rooted in St. Thomas’ principles: sacraments causing what they signify, the double consecration as signifying the separation of Christ’s body and blood on the Cross, and the way the rite of Mass represents the passion and the resurrection.

At the moment of the consecration, Christ in glory is present (by the power of the sacrament and concomitance). But the double material aspect of the bread and wine (consecrated into his Body and Blood) provide representative signs of the passion (first and foremost), resurrection, and ascension. The profound mystery is that Christ in glory is present from the moment of the consecration and that he sacramentally re-presents the historical moments of the one Paschal mystery in order to make them present to us.

Objections

Why did Christ celebrate the Last Supper? “At the Last Supper with his apostles on the eve of his passion, Jesus anticipated, that is, both symbolized his free self-offering and made it really present.”⁶⁴  If Christ received communion at the Last Supper, he also, according to my hypothesis, anticipated and symbolized his ascension.⁶⁵ If it is objected that I have not proved my case or that I am only making a case for a partial presence of the ascension at the Mass, I can only reaffirm the tentative nature of my proposal. I am hoping to open up a space for greater reflection on the connection of the Eucharist and the ascension. In the words of Jean Corbon, “It is highly regrettable that the majority of the faithful pay so little heed to the ascension of the Lord. Their lack of appreciation of it is closely connected with their lack of appreciation of the mystery of the liturgy.”⁶⁶

If it is objected that my proposal contradicts the way the Church speaks of the Sacrifice of the Mass and not “the resurrection or ascension of the Mass,” I would insist that no changes in language should be made. In Mediator Dei, Pius XII wrote,

Since His bitter sufferings constitute the principal mystery of our redemption, it is only fitting that the Catholic faith should give it the greatest prominence. This mystery is the very center of divine worship since the Mass represents and renews it every day and since all the sacraments are most closely united with the cross.⁶⁷

Not only does Christ’s Passion constitute the principal mystery of our redemption, but “the time the consecration of the divine Victim is enacted”⁶⁸ constitutes the principal moment in the Mass. We name the Mass from what is most principal and most essential.

If it is objected that I have overemphasized auxiliary liturgical rites (commingling and priest’s communion), I would make a distinction. Those two moments at Mass alter the fundamental symbolism of the sacramental separation of the Eucharistic Body and Blood. Instead of the Body being sacramentally separated from the Blood, the Body is joined with the Blood and then disappears from view. The commingling and priest’s communion are not simply auxiliary liturgical rites. Moreover, it is not the sacramentum tantum that alone accounts for making present Christ’s sacrifice. The words of consecration, the form of the sacramentum tantum, cause a change that terminates in what is signified. The bread becomes the Body of Christ. The blood becomes his Blood. It is the condition, the relation, of the Eucharistic Body and Blood (retaining the appearances, the species, of bread and wine) as separated that signifies and makes present the sacrifice of Calvary. It is precisely in the changing conditions of the Eucharistic body (as commingled and later eaten) that new symbolisms emerge.

How does my proposal cohere with the classical idea of the priest’s communion as necessary for the “integrity of the sacrifice”?⁶⁹ Integrity does not mean that the priest’s communion is of the essence of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Charles Cardinal Journet explains: “Everyone today admits that the essence of the sacrifice of the Mass is situated in the moment of the consecration, and that the reason for Communion is to allow us to enter more deeply into the sacrificial drama.”⁷⁰ But the resurrection and ascension must be part of the unified sacrificial drama. As the Catechism explains, these three events are parts of a unique event: “When his Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away: Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father ‘once for all’ (Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27; 9:12; cf. Jn 13:1; 17:1).” (CCC §1085)

In the sacrificial drama of our redemption, the resurrection of Christ “crowned his sacrifice.”⁷¹ Christ rose, however, so that he might ascend and fill “the whole human race with spiritual gifts.”⁷² In Ephesians 4:10, St Paul writes: “He who descended is who also ascended far above the heavens, that he might fill all things.” Since the ascension is integral to the sacrifice of Christ achieving its effects, the sacramental making present of the ascension in the priest’s communion can be seen as part of the integrity of the sacrifice.⁷³

“By his sacrifice,” we sing in one of the Church’s prefaces, Christ “cancelled out our sins; by his rising from the dead he has opened the way to eternal life, and by ascending to you, O Father, he has unlocked the gates of heaven.”⁷⁴ The Church’s liturgy sees the passion, resurrection, and ascension as one mystery accomplishing our salvation. And in the Roman Canon, after the memorial acclamation, the priest celebrant says, “Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial of the blessed Passion, the Resurrection from the dead, and the glorious Ascension into heaven of Christ, your Son, our Lord.” If the Mass is the memorial of the passion, resurrection, and ascension, are not all three events rendered present in a harmonious manner?

Conclusion

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present.” (CCC §1085)  To better understand this teaching, I have suggested that we start from the way the Mass makes present the passion by means of the double consecration. Building on the Church’s desire to speak of the co-presence of both the passion and resurrection, one can draw on a long theological tradition of seeing the commingling as connected to the resurrection. As the separate consecrations signify and make present the death of Christ, so the reunion of the consecrated elements signifies and makes present his resurrection. A pattern thus emerges. The signification of the crucial moments of the Paschal mystery is found in the symbolism of the Eucharistic elements themselves. If the Church includes the ascension in the Paschal mystery, should we not extend this analysis to explain how the Mass sacramentally makes the ascension present? And then does not the necessity of the priest’s communion take on a deeper meaning? For if that great deed of the Paschal mystery “was what we believe it to be, what we know it is, it must remain present, though past; it must be a standing fact for all times.”⁷⁵